Status: 01/26/2023 2:54 p.m
As big as a truck and closer than ever before, the asteroid “2023 BU” will race past the earth – at an altitude of only 3600 kilometers at the southern tip of South America. According to NASA, there is no danger of an impact.
An asteroid passes exceptionally close to Earth on Friday night. The celestial body called “2023 BU” reached the closest point of its orbit early Friday at 01:27 German time, as the US space agency NASA announced. Then the asteroid, about the size of a delivery truck, rushes past the southern tip of South America at an altitude of only 3600 kilometers.
According to NASA, there is no risk of an impact. For comparison: Geostationary satellites are around 35,000 kilometers from Earth, the ISS space station around 400 kilometers. In all likelihood, however, it will be one of the closest approaches to Earth that has ever been recorded, according to NASA.
Even if the piece of space came a whole lot closer to Earth, nothing would probably happen. According to researchers, most of the asteroid would burn up in the atmosphere. Some of the larger pieces could fall as meteorites.
Discovered just a few days ago
Only a few days ago, the celestial body was discovered – amateur astronomer Gennady Borissov at the Margo Observatory in Crimea.
Borissov made a name for himself in 2019 when he used a homemade telescope to discover a comet crossing our solar system on its journey from deep space. Comet 2I/Borisov attracted worldwide interest among astronomers at the time.